*Holistic health and alterative medicine*

Nevyn

Well Dave firstly I would say drop using the term hocus pocus.
Secondly the pharmaceutical medial industry is not interested in doing extensive research into treatments which they won't make a profit off.

The discussions would have to be open minded so that there can be sharing and debate.
In my personal experience crystals can sometimes assist a process and I know reiki works as does acupuncture and acupressure, herbal teas deffo as for heomopathic stuff
I don't know enough to make a call on that, I am incredibly skeptical, but I would be interested in learning more.

MysticalSoul

As it would be a complementary therapy thread, no one should be suggesting things for ailments. I have trained in reiki, and one thing that we were told for when we went out practicing was not to diagnose etc, and any ethical practitioner would follow this. For a forum, I think is ok to give your opinion, experiences etc, but to be clear that this is only your experience.

Sapsorrow

Thaedydal wrote: »

Well Dave firstly I would say drop using the term hocus pocus.
Secondly the pharmaceutical medial industry is not interested in doing extensive research into treatments which they won't make a profit off.

The discussions would have to be open minded so that there can be sharing and debate.
In my personal experience crystals can sometimes assist a process and I know reiki works as does acupuncture and acupressure, herbal teas deffo as for heomopathic stuff
I don't know enough to make a call on that, I am incredibly skeptical, but I would be interested in learning more.

Good post, calling something hocus pocus instead of offering an intelligent arguement for why it may or may not work is just immature and not in any way constructive to the conversation. I don't even know why you're posting in here, do you just enjoy undermining people with different opinions or beliefs than you or something or are do you come to the spirituality forum out of personal interest? I personally am only interested in the tangible therapies which logic and a good scientific logic/basis behind them but I listed a range of therapies including more spiritually based ones because it shouldn't just be a forum for my wants it should suit everyone interested in this area. Whether I think it works or not is irrelevant. The amount of advice we dish out in the nutrition forum is crazy and no one says anything about that, I don't think anoyone in there is a registered nutritionist or dietician either, so it seems a bit hyppocritical to not give this idea a go. I think admin are just being cautious so they don't get themselves in trouble at any point and I can't see they're ever going to change their minds tbh.

Nevyn

There is also the fact that a lot the user base and the admins are very logically minded people with back grounds in programming, tech and engineering and we have a fair few medical drs who are mods and would be dead set against such a forum unfortunatly.

Oryx

Holistic therapies have this battle for acceptance everywhere, not just on boards. A lot of the claims are anecdotal, and there isnt the body of scientific research to back them up, which makes promoting them here difficult as you face a skeptical backlash. Like Thaedydal, I have some therapies I would put a lot of faith in, others I feel are snake oil. A forum handled correctly would be a good thing, but given the environment here, it would be terribly difficult to handle correctly. I have spent years on the paranormal forum, where we face the very same difficulties of skeptical disdain killing all discussion. We have tackled that to a degree, though, so it can work.

Unfortunately in this case you have the added problem of holistic therapies by definition being medical therapies, dealing with illness and health. That means any discussion will also always be close to breaking boards rules. Its not that we couldnt handle it, but the powers that be may not want the difficulty of having to control it in the first place.

Dave!

Thaedydal wrote: »

Well Dave firstly I would say drop using the term hocus pocus.

Fair enough

Thaedydal wrote: »

Secondly the pharmaceutical medial industry is not interested in doing extensive research into treatments which they won't make a profit off.

Well the CAM (Complimentary and Alternative Medicine) crowd manage to make a profit so I don't know why actual doctors wouldn't...

But regardless, the medical community has researched alot of these kinds of treatments -- homeopathy and acupuncture most notably. They've (unsurprisingly) found that the only effect they have is resulting from the placebo effect, or because of the pageantry and theatre surround such treatments.

Thaedydal wrote: »

The discussions would have to be open minded so that there can be sharing and debate.

I'm all for open-mindedness, just not so much that your brain falls out

There's no known plausible mechanism by which most of these treatments could work, and there's no evidence that they do work, so unless you allow the introduction of some mystical makey-uppey 'force', and anecdotes in place of actual evidence, then there's not much discussion to be had.

If you do allow that kind of thing to be introduced then maybe you'll have a forum that works, but it would be a rather ridiculous place...

Thaedydal wrote: »

In my personal experience crystals can sometimes assist a process and I know reiki works as does acupuncture and acupressure, herbal teas deffo as for heomopathic stuff
I don't know enough to make a call on that, I am incredibly skeptical, but I would be interested in learning more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

That accounts for it all

Oryx

Dave!, homeopathy is one of the therapies that really makes me scratch my head, but theres an interesting chapter (summary given only) on it in a book called 13 things that dont make sense, by Michael Brooks, which asks if there could be more than placebo going on.

Dave!

Oryx wrote: »

Dave!, homeopathy is one of the therapies that really makes me scratch my head, but theres an interesting chapter (summary given only) on it in a book called 13 things that dont make sense, by Michael Brooks, which asks if there could be more than placebo going on.

Oryx, had a read of that summary but it doesn't say anything about whether it's the placebo effect at work or not I guess he goes into further detail within the actual chapter

I don't find homeopathy that interesting -- pretty much everything seems to point towards it being the placebo effect, It doesn't work at all for any serious ailments and the principles of it are completely outlandish and have no foundation in science.

I've only browsed through it, but this seems to give a decent summary of it (skip the first few paragraphs that just talk about the history of homeopathy): http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html

Oryx

The full chapter does elaborate quite a bit more than the summary. I only posted it because it is one of those books where the status quo is being questioned, but using current accepted (though contradictory) evidence. Ive read quite a bit on homeopathy, from both sides. Im as yet unconvinced by it, but this book did put a tiny question mark over it.

You say that if we accept a mystical 'force' of some kind is at work and allow that, the forum would work. But on the other hand if we do not, this hypothetical forum simply becomes another Irish Skeptics forum, with every claim being hounded. I dont see either being helpful, tbh, which is why Im quite negative about such a forum being set up in the first place.

Dave!

Well every claim should be hounded, shouldn't it? I don't see why someone should be allowed to introduce some supernatural force into a discussion unless they have a good basis for doing so ! It's pure speculation at best, and they should be required (by the rules of normal discourse) to substantiate it. Otherwise I might as well say acupuncture works for me because my dog Jessie emits a force that latches onto me and interacts with the needles. Who's to say it doesn't? It's no more outlandish than other similar claims, and we get nowhere with the discussion. If you really want to understand how something works, do science !

Homeopathy and most other CAMs can have notable effects in some circumstances, but these are accounted for for the most part by the placebo effect. It's the reason why medical researchers control for the placebo effect and use double-blind protocols and so on -- because they want the only variable to be whether you're getting an active treatment or not, so that they know whether it's the drug that's working, or whether it's the act of taking a tablet/whatever that makes you feel better.

I'll level with you here Oryx -- as I mentioned, most CAM seems to work by the placebo effect. In my opinion, alt med proponents should accept this and the discussion should be about when is it appropriate to use placebos? And perhaps different alternative treatments should be used by different people if they so desire. But it should also be acknowledged that the placebo effect only helps some ailments, and not most of the claims CAM proponents make -- asthma, autoimmune diseases, acne, etc.

And I'm not even sure where I weigh in on the question of whether placebos should be used to complement medical treatment. Here's a post of mine from a recent thread in the Health Sciences forum:

Dave! wrote: »

<snip>

It's interesting that this thread was bumped, because recently I've been considering the issue also. Obviously homeopathy is just placebo, but the placebo effect really does work quite well in some circumstances, so I'm kind of torn. Is there ailments for which doctors generally prescribe 'sugar pills', or is it just not done?

Obviously conventional medicine should be first choice, but where there's evidence to suggest that a placebo may help, then surely it's justified to supplement the real medicine with a placebo of some sort?

But I do believe that that's where the debate should be. The distortion of science and introduction of absolute nonsense is what gets my goat in these kinds of threads.

With that, I will bow out (for real this time :pac: )

Nevyn

This isn't the health science forum to start with and I disagree with hounding discussion and eploration sure, hounding hell no.

Hooded Healer

We should look look to our own traditions:

investmbsireland.wordpress.com

Nevyn

Hooded Healer wrote: »

We should look look to our own traditions:

And what would those be?

Hooded Healer

The strangers came and tried to teach us their ways but the Gael has a spiritual and healing tradition.

www.investmbsireland.wordpress.com

Nevyn

I looked at your link it's a snide parody and an attempt ot troll this forum.

Sapsorrow

Hooded Healer wrote: »

Lighten up. I'm poking fun. Humour is often a lively component of controversy.

Yes but no one apart from you finds you funny so you might as well give up. Poking fun at people who take something seriously in a forum or just trying to be a pain in general is referred to as trolling. The only people who get away with it are those that are genuinely witty and can give people a bit of a laugh which so far you haven't managed to do.

Hooded Healer

So, trolling is a virtue. OK, I'll try to do more of it.

Thank you for the feedback. I'm sorry my efforts didn't amuse you. I'll try harder. Sometimes it can be next to impossible, as the Danish cartoonists found out. Nevertheless, occasionally those difficult to amuse can be offended and at least that's better than leaving them undisturbed.

I'd love to be banned. I suppose a fatwah would be out of the question?

Sapsorrow

Hooded Healer wrote: »

I'd love to be banned. I suppose a fatwah would be out of the question?

Really? After going to so much effort to make up a new profile and having thought up a clever new name? Pity people in real life don't pay you enough attention, I guess you'll be pretty lonely if you get banned.